Alliance of VCs commit to helping portfolio companies set aside stock for social impact on path to IPO; $1B in new philanthropy already ignited in the last year by companies like Coinbase, UiPath, and Unity
(San Francisco, Calif. – June 8, 2021) — Pledge 1%, a global movement to inspire, educate, and empower all companies to leverage their assets for good, today announced the launch of Boardroom Allies. The founding group of top venture capitalists (VCs) have committed to unlocking $5 billion in new philanthropy over the next five years by partnering with Pledge 1% to advise their portfolio companies on how to set aside equity for social impact prior to their liquidity events. Amidst a heightened focus on the role businesses play in fostering societal change, Boardroom Allies will play a pivotal role in ushering in a new era of corporate giving.
“This past year, we’ve seen more companies demonstrate that they have an important role to play in tackling the toughest challenges of our time. Shareholder, employee, and customer expectations are changing. It’s exciting to see business leaders step up to meet this moment by leveraging their assets to address pressing social, environmental, and racial justice issues. Doing so is not only the right thing to do; it’s also a business imperative,” said Laela Sturdy, General Partner at CapitalG and Board Member of UiPath.
“We’re seeing a new trend of companies setting aside equity prior to an exit to sustainably fund their social impact and ESG efforts for years to come,” said Neeraj Agrawal, General Partner at Battery Ventures. “By providing equity model standards, a definitive CEO playbook, and experienced consultation, Pledge 1% has been fueling this trend.”
With the support of Pledge 1%, many of the most successful exits of the last year, including Coinbase, Digital Ocean, Olo, UiPath, and Unity Technologies have committed equity for good on the road to their IPOs, joining industry leaders driving the Pledge 1% movement such as Atlassian, DocuSign, Twilio, Okta, Salesforce, Slack, PagerDuty, Upwork, and Zuora. Many top pre-IPO companies such as Canva, Guild Education, Crunchbase, and Puppet have also made the commitment. Collectively, their equity pledges have already ignited billions of dollars in social impact funds.
Recognizing that standards and best practices optimized by company stage were required to streamline the equity pledge process, Pledge 1% developed a step-by-step guide for companies to formalize equity pledges: the CEO Playbook and a Companion Guide for CFOs and GCs. A key strategy outlined in the CEO Equity Playbook is finding and leveraging a boardroom ally to serve as a thought partner to the CEO as he/she navigates equity model selection, timing, and building a coalition of board support.
As the Pledge 1% team accelerated efforts to help venture-backed companies set aside equity prior to their liquidity events, VC board members became not only powerful partners in helping CEOs, but also catalysts of the movement, encouraging other portfolio companies to formalize equity pledges as well. Thus, Boardroom Allies was born as a vehicle for VCs to advocate for change.
“Boardroom Allies is a first-of-its-kind alliance of forward-thinking investors from top VC firms who’ve committed to helping companies set aside equity for social impact — not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because it’s also a smart business decision,” said Amy Lesnick, President and CEO of Pledge 1%. “The launch of this program represents a major milestone in our goal of empowering all companies to leverage their assets for good, and gets us one step closer toward a world where setting aside equity for social impact is the norm.”
“Working with Pledge 1% to make an equity commitment makes sense on many levels,” said Seth Levine, Partner at Foundry Group. “Setting aside pre-IPO stock for social impact should be a standard business practice to strengthen employee engagement and build purpose into a company’s DNA. As a founding Boardroom Ally, I encourage other VCs to join this coalition and CEOs to reach out to Pledge 1% and their board members for the support to make this a reality.”
“CEOs of late stage companies are sometimes cautious to propose an equity pledge to their Boards. However, from our perspective, this is increasingly a natural step in IPO readiness,” said Byron Deeter, Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. “We imagine a future in which an equity pledge could be part of every significant technology S1 filing as customers, employees, and investors put increasing value on how companies show up as corporate citizens.”
As part of its launch, Boardroom Allies is announcing the following founding members:
*Directly advised/supported and/or currently supporting portfolio company to set aside equity
| Name | Firm | Equity commitments within firm portfolio |
| Andrew Braccia* | Accel | Atlassian, Code42, DocuSign, Lookout, PagerDuty, Slack, UiPath |
| Richard Wong* | Accel | Atlassian, Code42, DocuSign, Lookout, PagerDuty, Slack, UiPath |
| John O’Farrell* | Andreessen Horowitz | Coinbase, DigitalOcean, Lookout, Okta, PagerDuty, Slack |
| Ajay Agarwal* | Bain Capital Ventures | AvidXchange, DocuSign, Gainsight, SendGrid |
| Enrique Salem* | Bain Capital Ventures | AvidXchange, DocuSign, Gainsight, SendGrid |
| Matt Harris* | Bain Capital Ventures | AvidXchange, DocuSign, Gainsight, SendGrid |
| Chelsea Stoner | Battery Ventures | Coinbase, Gainsight, Olo |
| Neeraj Agrawal* | Battery Ventures | Coinbase, Gainsight, Olo |
| Roger Lee* | Battery Ventures | Coinbase, Gainsight, Olo |
| Chetan Puttagunta | Benchmark | Upwork, Yelp, Zuora |
| Eric Vishria | Benchmark | Upwork, Yelp, Zuora |
| Miles Grimshaw | Benchmark | Upwork, Yelp, Zuora |
| Peter Fenton* | Benchmark | Upwork, Yelp, Zuora |
| Sarah Tavel | Benchmark | Upwork, Yelp, Zuora |
| Byron Deeter* | Bessemer Venture Partners | Auth0, Canva, Gainsight, Guild Education, PagerDuty, SendGrid, Twilio, Vlocity, Yelp |
| Ethan Kurzweil* | Bessemer Venture Partners | Auth0, Canva, Gainsight, Guild Education, PagerDuty, SendGrid, Twilio, Vlocity, Yelp |
| Kent Bennett* | Bessemer Venture Partners | Auth0, Canva, Gainsight, Guild Education, PagerDuty, SendGrid, Twilio, Vlocity, Yelp |
| Niki Scevak* | Blackbird Ventures | Canva |
| Laela Sturdy* | CapitalG | UiPath |
| Aileen Lee | Cowboy Ventures | Crunchbase, Guild Education |
| Seth Miller | Fearless Ventures | Not publicly disclosed |
| Mike Jung | Founders Circle Capital | Auth0, DocuSign, Gainsight, Twilio |
| Brad Feld* | Foundry Group | AvidXchange; Crucible Acquisition Corp. I, II, and III; Rally Software; SendGrid |
| Ryan Mcintyre* | Foundry Group | AvidXchange; Crucible Acquisition Corp. I, II, and III; Rally Software; SendGrid |
| Seth Levine* | Foundry Group | AvidXchange; Crucible Acquisition Corp. I, II, and III; Rally Software; SendGrid |
| Philipp Stauffer* | FYRFLY Venture Partners | SendGrid, Twilio, Altoida, Mobi, Beekeeper |
| Julie Maples* | FYRFLY Venture Partners | SendGrid, Twilio, Altoida, Mobi, Beekeeper |
| Kim Moore | Glynn Capital | DocuSign, Okta, Slack, Zuora |
| Jackie Glynn | Glynn Capital | DocuSign, Okta, Slack, Zuora |
| David Glynn | Glynn Capital | DocuSign, Okta, Slack, Zuora |
| Doug Pepper* | ICONIQ Capital | DocuSign, Guild Education, Pluralsight, Skilljar |
| Alda Leu Dennis | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Andrew Lee | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Brett Gibson | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Garry Tan* | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Jen Wolf | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Kim Mai-Cutler | Initialized Capital | Coinbase |
| Somesh Dash | Institutional Venture Partners | Coinbase, Slack, UiPath |
| Jules Maltz | Institutional Venture Partners | Coinbase, Slack, UiPath |
| Pete Solvik* | Jackson Square Ventures | DocuSign, Upwork |
| Rajeev Batra* | Mayfield Fund | Crunchbase, Skilljar, SmartRecruiters |
| Rishi Garg | Mayfield Fund | Crunchbase, Skilljar, SmartRecruiters |
| Tim Chang | Mayfield Fund | Crunchbase, Skilljar, SmartRecruiters |
| Peter Sonsini | New Enterprise Associates | Code42, Salesforce, Upwork |
| Rick Yang | New Enterprise Associates | Code42, Salesforce, Upwork |
| Dave Zilberman | Norwest Venture Partners | Not publicly disclosed |
| Tim Connors* | PivotNorth Capital | Cloud Apartments, Stremium |
| Jeff Brody | Redpoint | Guild Education, Twilio, Zuora |
| Scott Raney* | Redpoint | Guild Education, Twilio, Zuora |
| Alex Kayyal | Salesforce Ventures | Auth0, Crunchbase, DocuSign, Gainsight, Guild Education, Twilio, Vlocity, SmartRecruiters |
| John Somorjai* | Salesforce Ventures | Auth0, Crunchbase, DocuSign, Gainsight, Guild Education, Twilio, Vlocity, SmartRecruiters |
| Matthew Garratt* | Salesforce Ventures | Auth0, Crunchbase, DocuSign, Gainsight, Guild Education, Twilio, Vlocity, SmartRecruiters |
| Ron Conway* | SV Angel | Coinbase, Crunchbase, Lookout, Okta, PagerDuty, Slack, Twilio, Upwork, Weebly |
| David Yuan* | Tidemark | Not publicly disclosed |
| David Cohen* | Techstars | DigitalOcean, SendGrid, Twilio |
| Jason Seats | Techstars | DigitalOcean, SendGrid, Twilio |
| Nicole Glaros | Techstars | DigitalOcean, SendGrid, Twilio |
| David Pakman | Venrock | Not publicly disclosed |
To download Pledge 1%’s CEO Equity Playbook and Companion Guide for CFOs and GCs, visit P1.equity/today. To learn more about how to set aside social impact at your company or join this alliance of top VCs as a Boardroom Ally, email allies@pledge1percent.org or visit pledge1percent.org.
About Pledge 1%: Pledge 1% is a global movement that inspires, educates, and empowers every entrepreneur, company, and employee to be a force for good. Over 12,000 members in 100 countries around the world have used Pledge 1%’s flexible framework to ignite billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours in new philanthropy. To learn more about Pledge 1%, and how your company can get involved, visit pledge1percent.org.
